1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a backup and more particularly relates to backing up virtual machines.
2. Description of the Related Art
Virtual machine software is often used to allow a single computer to execute a plurality of virtual machines. Each virtual machine may appear to a user or other computer as a unique physical computer. Thus each virtual machine may execute a unique operating system and/or have a unique security configuration. In addition, each virtual machine may store data to a virtual disk, wherein each virtual disk is embodied in one or more physical hard disks.
The use of virtual machines may reduce computing costs by allowing a single physical computer to perform the functions of multiple computers. For example, a first virtual machine may function as a database server while a second virtual machine may function as a Web server. Each virtual machine may be configured with an appropriate operating system and security configuration. However, both virtual machines may execute on the same computer.
Because virtual machines often store and process critical data, virtual machines need to be backed up. For example, a backup proxy may back up data from a plurality of virtual machines to a data storage system.
Unfortunately, the backup proxy typically stores the backed up data as the data is seen by the backup proxy. For example, all the data from a plurality of virtual disks embodied by a single physical hard disk may be stored together. Thus although each virtual disk may have unique security controls, the backup data may all share the security controls of the backup proxy. In addition, the pathnames for the data may reflect those names seen by the backup proxy rather than the virtual disk names.